A Little Guy - a hipster in Queens - conducted a campaign to get an even playing field with hedge funds in the case of Washington Mutual. He has concluded that the game is rigged against him, fighting Wall Street is too exhausting and is going back to freelance Web work. This is easily the best story Easy Street has read in months.

Reines knows full well that, in the image-building business, a wealth of humanizing details can make a character more sympathetic. Even as he shipped out with Clinton to an Arctic summit in Greenland, he e-mailed his profiler: "Would it be helpful if I sent you random factoids, pieces of color? For instance, I don't ever drink D.C. tap water."

He then offered a series of bullet-point notes, including such information as "I take Pilates," "I walk to work" and "When I wear cuff-linked shirts, I wear a set that look like sink faucets, one's marked hot one's marked cold. It's a self-aware reflection that I can be both." He also noted that he is embarking on a master's program at night at the National Defense University and that he is currently reading three books.

Reines also sent along more than a dozen photos of himself. They included shots of him riding a tricycle as a baby, chipping away at the Berlin Wall, riding in an elevator with Sen. John McCain and stepping out for an evening with actress Natalie Portman.

About the author

Heidi N. Moore is The Guardian's U.S. finance and economics editor. She was formerly the New York bureau chief and Wall Street correspondent for Marketplace.